The State Of The Internet: A Feast Of Worldwide Data

Visual data aficionados, rejoice. An information-rich site capturing real-time data surrounding the power and current state of the internet is available for your perusal (and presentation, education needs).

‘The State of the Internet‘ is an interactive data visualization tool capturing real-time metrics on the current power, size, interactivity, content, revenues and information shared across the web. According to the creators:

The Internet is a strange, huge beast. It is getting bigger, faster and more mobile each day. Ferocious social networks fight each other to be on top and gain more of our attention and personal information. An entire economy is generated from our browsing habits. This is the face of the Internet now.

The site captures data that includes:

Worldwide internet penetration – not just people online, but quality of network infrastructure across countries, mobile broadband growth, and identification of ‘internet enemies’ that censor and control citizens’ access to particular content

A ticker capturing number of new internet users and websites created with each passing second

Growth of social properties, Google search terms, Wikipedia entries and YouTube videos added over time

Statistics surrounding what we do and how we spend our time when we’re online

Dollars spent online – and sales generated by Amazon – with each passing second

and of course, more…

While we don’t know exactly how the real-time data captured within the counters is being generated, the immediacy of the counters does tell a great story for site visitors. A treasure trove of data, indeed. Long live the (open, democratic and free) internet.